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By Root 1762 0

of the gesture did not spoil for me the effect of the spectacle that was attendant upon it. For I sensed that what had made it hesitant and embarrassed was the fear of letting me see that they had been waiting only for me to begin dinner and that they had been waiting for a long time, in the same way as Mme de Guermantes was afraid that, after looking at so many pictures, I would find it tiring and would be hindered from taking my ease among them if her husband engaged me in a continuous flow of introductions. So that it was the absence of grandeur in this gesture that disclosed the true grandeur which lay in the Duke’s indifference to the splendour of his surroundings, in contrast to his deference towards a guest, however insignificant in himself, whom he desired to honour.

Not that M. de Guermantes was not in certain aspects thoroughly commonplace, showing indeed some of the absurd weaknesses of a man with too much money, the arrogance of an upstart which he certainly was not. But just as a public official or a priest sees his own humble talents multiplied to infinity (as a wave is by the whole mass of the sea which presses behind it) by the forces that stand behind him, the Government of France or the Catholic Church, so M. de Guermantes was borne up by that other force, aristocratic courtesy in its truest form. This courtesy excluded a large number of people. Mme de Guermantes would not have entertained Mme de Cambremer or M. de Forcheville. But the moment that anyone (as was the case with me) appeared eligible for admission into the Guermantes world, this courtesy disclosed a wealth of hospitable simplicity more splendid still, if possible, than those historic rooms and the marvellous furniture that remained in them.

When he wished to give pleasure to someone, M. de Guermantes went about making him the most important personage on that particular day with an art and a skill that made the most of the circumstances and the place. No doubt at Guermantes his “distinctions” and “favours” would have assumed another form. He would have ordered his carriage to take me for a drive alone with himself before dinner. Such as they were, one could not help feeling touched by his courteous ways, as one is, when one reads the memoirs of the period, by those of Louis XIV when he replies benignly, with a smile and a half-bow, to someone who has come to solicit his favour. It must however, in both instances, be borne in mind that this “politeness” did not go beyond the strict meaning of the word.

Louis XIV (with whom the sticklers for pure nobility of his day nevertheless find fault for his scant regard for etiquette, so much so that, according to Saint-Simon, he was only a very minor king, in terms of rank, by comparison with such monarchs as Philippe de Valois or Charles V) has the most meticulous instructions drawn up so that princes of the blood and ambassadors may know to what sovereigns they ought to give precedence. In certain cases, in view of the impossibility of arriving at an agreement, a compromise is arranged by which the son of Louis XIV, Monseigneur, shall entertain a certain foreign sovereign only out of doors, in the open air, so that it may not be said that in entering the palace one has preceded the other; and the Elector Palatine, entertaining the Duc de Chevreuse to dinner, in order not to have to give way to his guest, pretends to be taken ill and dines with him lying down, thus solving the difficulty. When M. le Duc avoids occasions when he must wait upon Monsieur, the latter, on the advice of the King, his brother, who is incidentally extremely attached to him, seizes an excuse for making his cousin attend his levee and forcing him to put on the royal shirt. But as soon as deeper feelings are involved, matters of the heart, this rule of duty, so inflexible when politeness only is at stake, changes entirely. A few hours after the death of this brother, one of the people whom he most dearly loved, when Monsieur, in the words of the Duc de Montfort, is “still warm,” we find Louis XIV singing snatches from operas,